


Morbid Curiosity

by catefrankie



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - East of the Sun and West of the Moon Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Domestic, F/M, Fairy Tale Curses, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23550688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catefrankie/pseuds/catefrankie
Summary: The mystery of her bedroom, of a faceless, voiceless person with the unexplained desire to be close to her, was terrifying.  But the mystery of her host, whose face was a mask, who never seemed to speak the truth simply if he could come at it sideways, and who brought her here out of seemingly no desire at all – was maddening.an East of the Sun, West of the Moon AU
Relationships: Elena Gilbert/Damon Salvatore
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	1. Prologue

Once upon a time, there was a girl who was known for her generous heart.

She lived alone with her brother and her aunt in her small town, for already she had lost much, but the many tragedies of her life never embittered her. The more that was taken from her, the more she became willing to give of herself. The more fate betrayed her, the more she offered her trust and her hope. “You have to give it to get it,” she would say, smiling as if the things she said were easy. She had been blessed with a lively disposition and a beautiful face, and though her losses made her quieter and gentler, they made her no less beautiful, and her neighbors called her “princess”, “angel”, and “savior”, and her reputation spread far and wide – too wide.

One dark day, a monster appeared at her door.

They knew better than to invite him in, but he called to them from where he stood on the porch. He said, “I’ve come for the girl they say can love the unlovable.”

“You can’t have her,” the girl’s aunt said sharply. “You are not welcome here!” Beside her, the girl’s brother nodded grimly and clutched an improvised weapon, but the girl put her ear to the door and said nothing.

“If you do not come willingly, I am not afraid to take you,” the monster said, “but I think you will come willingly. I will guarantee your family’s prosperity – they won’t have to worry anymore about the fickleness of fate, they won’t have any more ill luck, the curse that has been on your family will be lifted – and you will soon be with them again. I only ask your help, because I believe you are the only one who _can_ help me.”

“Get away from here!” the aunt snapped.

The girl interrupted her, saying in a soft voice, “What help do you need?”

“Stay with me in my home for a year and a day. You will be safe and cared for; no harm will come to you, everything possible will be done to ensure your happiness. At the end of the allotted time, you will be free.”

“How does this help you?” the girl asked.

But he would only say again, “You will be safe, then, you will be free.”

They pleaded with her, but her heart had been pricked – if not by the monster’s strange request, then by something in his voice when he named it. “I believe him,” she whispered, taking her brother’s and aunt’s hands in hers. “And if there truly is a curse on our family, and by doing this one thing I can lift it – how can I say no?”

“Our family is fine,” her brother said, fiercely. “You don’t owe us this, and you don’t owe him anything.”

“Perhaps I don’t, and perhaps I do,” the girl said. “But whether or not it is owed, it may still be given.” She leaned over and kissed her brother on the top of his head where it was bent toward her, and wished that the good luck she could buy for him would bring him the happiness he deserved. She squeezed her aunt’s hand, and hoped that she would be repaid for everything she had given up for them. Then she slipped between them and opened the door, and stepped out of her home. “I will go willingly,” she told the monster, “and I will help you, if I can.”

His eyes were red, his veins showed blue and purple under his skin, and when he smiled she saw that his teeth were sharp. He held himself like a wild thing, waiting to bolt, or to pounce. “I knew you would, savior girl,” he said.

“My name is Elena,” she told him.

“ _Elena_ ,” he repeated. He offered his hand to her, and when she took it cautiously by the tips of her fingers, he twirled her so that her arm was around his neck, and then scooped her up so that before she knew what had happened he was holding her like a groom carries a bride. 

“And what’s your name?” she asked, stammering a little despite herself and trying not to look at his fangs.

His eyebrows lifted, creasing his forehead in supercilious amusement at her expense. “Do monsters and dead things have names?”

And indeed, as he carried her away pressed to his chest, she couldn’t feel his heart beat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> None of my stories are ever beta-ed, but this one has gone through a much less strenuous editing process than my stories usually do. I may return and edit it later, or I may not.
> 
> The prologue has a stronger fairy-tale flavor than the rest of the story, but I am trying to keep the time period kind of vague throughout the whole thing, and therefore the dialogue isn't as carbon-copy TVD-ish as the stuff I write for "You're Still Here".
> 
> Enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

The great, sprawling house the monster brought her to was beautiful, but it was also dark, and every room was cold. “Why so many rooms?” she asked. He’d put her down, gently enough, in the foyer and she was rotating slowly, wondering how a place like this could be someone’s home.

“It used to be full,” he told her, tone detached.

“And now?”

“Myself – and you.”

“No one else?”

“No one else.”

She felt a chill, and not one originating from the drafty old house. “Where do you stay?” she asked, trying to keep the tremor from her voice.

He gestured vaguely toward one far corner of the upper floor. “You can take the opposite, if you wish,” he said, drily. “It doesn’t matter.”

She lifted her chin stubbornly. “May I look and see which room I like best?”

He only shrugged. “Explore, if you like. Nothing is barred to you, though I would suggest avoiding the cellars. I don’t think you would find them…very…” he paused, then finished delicately, “comfortable.”

She nodded. “Are you going to show me around?”

He grimaced. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, startled. “We’re going to be living together –”

“We’ll live alongside each other,” he interrupted, derisive. “I did not ask for your presence because I desired company.”

“But how can I help if you don’t speak to me?” she asked, bewildered.

“I’ll speak to you, Elena, just don’t expect me to hold your hand.”

She didn’t flinch, but she felt like flinching. “I’m not asking you to hold my hand,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows.

“I’m not,” she repeated, and to prove him wrong, turned away and walked further into the house, leaving him behind. She would find her way around on her own.

The ground floor had high ceilings and tall windows, but the overwhelming amount of dark wood and deep red curtains kept it from feeling open. There was an excess of upholstery overall, she thought. The carpets and tapestries were all obviously expensive, but perhaps hadn’t been well cared for, so that they smelled musty. They muffled her steps in a way that made her feel lonelier and smaller than echoes would have. She glanced up from time to time at the balconies overlooking from the second floor, but she never saw her host; presumably he had disappeared somewhere, which seemed like an ironic reversal of fortunes – a monster hiding so he wouldn’t have to run into her.

When she found her way to the second floor, she was disappointed to find that the first several bedrooms she poked her head into were arranged fairly similarly – larger and more fine than her own at home, than anything she was used to, but with little personality to distinguish them from one another. If she didn’t like one more than the others, she would have to pick one based on the only other criterion she had: its relative distance from the room of the only other inhabitant. She could pick a room near him, and prove she wasn’t afraid – or she could pick a room across the house from him, and prove she wasn’t going to be clingy. She didn’t know which one would serve her better, and so she kept poking her head into rooms.

Finally, in the same wing as the monster’s room but several doors down, she found a bedroom that looked a little more lived in. It was comfortably cluttered with books and candles, every surface scattered with papers, except for one small end-table which was incongruously possessed of a large globe. It felt a little bit like the inside of her own mind. She checked the doorway, and when satisfied that she wasn’t being spied upon, took a running start and launched herself onto the bed, where she sank into quilts and cushions. 

It would do. 

She tilted her head up to look at the ceiling, and allowed herself for the first time to consider what had happened, and what she had agreed to.

A year and a day.

A year and a day, alone in a drafty house with a man with eyes made for hunting and teeth made for cutting through skin, who needed her help, but didn’t seem to want it. She believed that he didn’t intend her any harm, and he had said he was willing to speak to her, but if he was only going to answer her with spite and condescension, then perhaps she ought to give him a little space, at least for the first few weeks. She had the whole house at her disposal – but was she allowed to move things, change things, make it her own? Was she allowed to go outside? What would she do, for a full year, with no school and no work and no family? There were books, yes – but was there _anything_ else?

A spiderweb caught her eye where it hung perilously between the ceiling and one post of her bed. She pushed herself up on her elbows and eyed it. 

She could hardly get in trouble for cleaning. She had to live here – they both did. He wasn’t about to begrudge her that.

She rolled out of bed and wandered back down the hallway, checking the little closets that she’d ignored on her first circuit. She located a broom and a few rags, but got distracted with the dust and cobwebs on the railing of the balcony before she could get back to her own room. The monster found her some time later, stretched on her tiptoes, poking carefully at a chandelier with a rag stuck on the tip of her broom.

“I didn’t ask for your presence because I wanted a servant, either,” he said. 

She hadn’t heard him come up behind her, and in her surprise nudged the chandelier too sharply, causing it to jangle. She dropped the broom down to her side. “It’s filthy,” she told him.

He raised his eyebrows at her, looking unbothered. “I haven’t lived here for a long time.”

She sighed, and brushed the dust off her shoulders. “No, I’m sorry. You startled me, that’s all.” 

He nodded. Then, as if he was testing the word, he said carefully, “Sorry.”

She nodded back. 

“There’s dinner downstairs, if you’re hungry.”

She leaned over the banister to look at the grandfather clock in the living room. It was much later than she had realized. “I am hungry,” she said. “Where does the food come from?”

“The kitchen.”

“Alright, _don’t_ tell me anything,” she said.

“I won’t,” he agreed. Then, in contradiction to what he’d just said: “The dining room’s this way.”

She allowed herself to be herded down the stairs, thinking: he hasn’t lived here long, or it’s been a long time since he lived here?

The dining room table was, predictably, in a dimly lit room, made of a dark wood, and exceptionally long. For a moment she envisioned herself and the monster eating at the two heads of the table, silently, every night for a year – but then she saw that there were two places set, across from each other on either side of one end. She glanced over her shoulder at him, unsure which place to take, but he walked by her without making eye contact, and pulled a chair out. He waited, and then looked back to quirk an eyebrow at her. “Well?”

“Oh,” she said. She stepped around him, sat, and let him push her chair in, murmuring her thanks. She picked up the cloth napkin from the side of her place and ran her fingers over it, then smoothed it onto her lap; when she looked up her companion was already seated and waiting for her. Again, she hadn’t heard him move. She started to open her mouth to ask a question, but then closed it, and only raised her eyebrows instead. He smirked back.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to serve ourselves,” he said, pushing the platter in the middle of the table toward her. 

She selected what looked like some sort of chicken filet and a small pile of noodles in a butter sauce, and passed the platter back. She took a cautious bite of the chicken; the seasonings were different than what she was used to, but it had been cooked well. 

“Wine?”

“Thank you, no.”

“Suit yourself.” He poured himself a glass. “Did you settle on a bedroom, then?”

She nodded. “In the south wing, two doors from yours.”

“The one with all the garbage in it?”

“The one with all the _books_ and things, yes. It just seemed more homey.”

He snorted. “Naturally. I don’t know why I’m even surprised.” 

She blew out a frustrated breath and chased her noodles around the plate with her fork. “And would you like to explain _why_ you’re not–”

“No.”

“Of course not.”

He growled slightly, under his breath. “And do you have everything you need?”

She looked up from her plate to stare at him. “I left with nothing but the clothes on my back. I _have_ nothing but the clothes on my back. I need…” She trailed off, unable to convey in the moment just how much a human person required to live a year and a day in a place. “Much,” she finished, lamely.

After an uncomfortable moment, he said, “That was a foolish thing for me to have said. There are soap and combs and things in the washroom adjoining your room, and I know where there are some spare clothes. I can fetch them for you.”

“Thank you,” she said, stiffly.

They ate in silence, after that – or rather, she ate and he sipped at his wine. He’d put the smallest piece of chicken on his plate and barely sampled it, and he’d avoided the noodles entirely. Even while pretending not to look, she could tell that his fangs weren’t well-suited for table manners – or maybe not suited for table food at all. 

She pushed her chair back and stood abruptly. 

He rose himself. “Is the food not to your liking?”

She bit back the question “Is it not to yours?” and said instead, “Please, don’t get up on my account, I am too tired to be properly hungry.”

He nodded, and stepped out from behind his chair. “I’ll see about getting you some things for your wardrobe.”

“You don’t need to –” she said, but within the space of a blink he was gone. With a sigh, she trudged back up to her bedroom and opened the wardrobe, which proved to be full of men’s clothing. She dumped it all out onto the bed, and then fetched her cleaning rag from the hallway and gave the inside of the empty wardrobe a cursory dusting. 

The monster announced himself with an awkward thump at her door, which, she saw when she turned her head, was due to the colossal armful of clothes he’d brought. “The night things are all on top,” he said. “You can look at the rest tomorrow.”

For lack of a better idea, she took the pile from him and simply placed it on the bottom of the wardrobe. She held up the nightgown that was sitting on top, and found that it was a lacey affair that was going to do little to keep her warm, and was probably going to itch. She folded it back up and hid it under her arm. “It…does look about the right size,” she said. 

“Does it indeed?” he said. “Imagine that.” He had a towel slung over his shoulder; he handed that to her as well.

“Thank you,” she said. 

“Get me a list of what you need, and I’ll see what I can do,” he said, nodded at her, and left – praise God, at a regular speed. 

She gave the nightgown another look, back and forth with the bed, which did at least seem to have plenty of blankets. It would do, and then everything else could wait until the morning.


	3. Chapter 3

It had been a white lie, Elena thought, when she said she was too tired to be hungry, for it was true she hadn’t been especially hungry; it was merely false that it had been due to fatigue, when really it had been due to anxiety. But white lie or no, she was paying for it now. It was earlier than she habitually would have been in bed, but beyond that she was full of nervous energy, she was in a strange bed in a strange house with a stranger two doors down – and the nightgown did itch. She tossed and turned, flung off her blankets and dragged them back over her, and listened to the clock chime the hours in the living room below her.

She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew she was awoken by a wooden-sounding creak. She rolled over, thinking that it was the usual sounds that were only to be expected in an old house, but then she heard it again, closer.

She sat up and peered around the room, but the darkness was all but completely impenetrable and only seemed to get blacker around the various piles of books, which were far too unfamiliar for her to be able to clearly distinguish or recognize them by memory. There were any number of eerie shadows that could be the source of the creak, but she had no way of knowing.

A third creak sounded, this time at the foot of the bed.

“Hello?”

There was no answer, but she could hear footsteps now, coming around the right of the bed.

She opened her mouth, and then realized she didn’t have a name to call. “Is that – you?” 

The steps didn’t pause, and she hastily untangled her legs from her sheets and swung them off the opposite side of the bed. She heard a squeaking sigh as the mattress depressed, and launched herself off the bed and towards the window. She would jump if she had to; it wasn’t that far to the ground. But the figure didn’t lunge after her, didn’t even cross the bed. Rather, it seemed to be getting under the covers. She held herself poised and ready to flee for another breathless, interminable minute. With her breath held, she could hear every sound made by the person in the bed, and as far as she could tell he was lying still, breathing slowly, and fully intending to fall asleep.

“No,” she said sharply, into the silence. “Absolutely not.”

The figure in the bed didn’t move, only let out a long sigh.

“ _No_ ,” she repeated, ripping a blanket off the foot of the bed and wrapping it around herself. “I don’t care if you only want to sleep. This is _my_ room, and you are in _my_ bed.” She tore open the curtains, but the darkness outside didn’t do anything to illuminate the room. She groped her way to a table where she remembered there being candles, but her hands found only books and empty candlesticks, and certainly no matches, and she stubbed her toe on the foot of the table. She gasped in pain.

The bed creaked; she grabbed a candlestick and hefted it, but the figure in the bed just burrowed deeper under the covers.

“ _Fine_ ,” she bit out. “You have this bed. There are plenty of others.” She hiked up the blanket, which was falling off her shoulder, and with as much dignity as she could muster stumbled her way over to the door. 

It didn’t open. She didn’t even remember there being a lock – like a fool, hadn’t even looked for one before she went to bed – and she couldn’t find it by touch. There wasn’t a keyhole, wasn’t a latch, wasn’t anything blocking the door. It just _wouldn’t open_. 

She spun back around, suddenly loathe to have her back to the figure in the bed. If this was the only other person she knew of in the house, then he was much stronger than she was. If he wanted to hurt her, her only hope was the window – but he’d promised that she would be safe, that she wouldn’t be harmed, that he’d do his best to get her whatever she needed. “ _Is_ that you?” she repeated, hating the way her voice shook but unable to stop it.

There was no answer. The figure carried on breathing slowly, as if he didn’t even notice her dramatics or at least didn’t care about them.

She pressed her back against the door and whispered, “Help.” She took a deep breath, clutched the candlestick harder in her right hand, and hit the door behind her as hard as she could with her closed fist. “Help. Help! _Please_ , help!”

Nobody came. 

The figure in the bed only rolled over, away from her.

She stood for a long time with her back to the door, trapped in the oppressive dark with no one nearby to defend or reassure her, listening for any sound of movement while the clock chimed the wee hours of the morning. Eventually she was too tired to hold herself up anymore, and after an internal debate on where she would be safest if she did fall asleep, settled on sitting with her back to the windowsill, her one blanket not shutting out the cold and the candlestick still in her hand not making her feel much braver in the dark.

That was where she woke: hunched over, her head dropped onto her knees, on the floor of a messy bedroom that couldn’t have felt any less like it was hers. But it was morning, and light streamed through the open curtains. 

She sprung to her feet, tripped over the edge of her blanket, and looked at the bed, bathed in daylight – empty.

She made a dash for the door; it opened easily, and she ran through it and down the hall, where she pounded on the door to the monster’s room. It hadn’t been fully latched, and swung half-open; his bed was empty, as well, and neatly made. She stepped back into the hallway and looked out over the ground floor; the clock read just after six. She could faintly make out the sounds of clattering down in the dining room.

A draft hit her, and she shivered and crossed her arms over her chest – and realized abruptly that she was angry, extremely so. She stalked into her room, grabbed the first article of clothing out of the discarded pile next to her wardrobe, which turned out to be a men’s jacket, threw it on over her cursed nightgown, and set off to find her host. 

He was sitting at the head of the dining room table with a cup of coffee in his hands and a small glass of what looked like liquor off to the side, and when she entered he looked up at her and raised his eyebrows. He was naked from the waist up. “Good morning,” he said.

“No, it is _not_ ,” Elena snapped.

“Really?” he said, blithe. “I had expected you might be having second thoughts, but I don’t see how you’re angry at me about it. You did agree.”

She squeaked, and then shot back, “And _you_ promised I’d be safe.”

He took a sip of his coffee and eyed her over the top of the cup. “I don’t see anything wrong with you – other than the odd choice of dressing gown, and the somewhat ghastly circles under your eyes. But again, I don’t see how that’s my fault.”

She pulled the jacket tighter around her. “Are you the only other person in this house or aren’t you?”

“Depends on what you mean.”

“A _straight_ answer, if you please.”

He sighed, and placed his coffee cup on the table. “Well, Elena,” he said with a mock patience belied by his then pausing to take a large gulp of liquor, “strictly speaking, I’d say that _you’re_ the only person in the house, myself not qualifying.”

“Could you be wrong about that?”

“I _could_ be wrong about any number of things. Why do you ask?”

“Could another…of you, another…non-person have gotten in?”

“No. Needs an invitation, you know that.”

“Then if there’s no one else here, who the _hell_ was in my room last night?” she demanded.

His eyebrows did something insultingly expressive. “What?” he said.

“If no one else is here, and you claim you have nothing to do with my dark circles and couldn’t _possibly_ have broken your promise about not harming me, then _who_ , pray tell, _locked me in my room_ and _slept_ in my _bed_?”

The expression shifted from politely shocked to perplexed. “Locked you in your room?”

She hardly thought that that was the more alarming thing she’d said. “And _slept in my bed_.”

“Elena, the door to that room doesn’t even lock.”

She threw her hands in the air. “Then maybe it was held shut by the curse?”

“The curse?” he repeated, blinking at her.

“Don’t be intentionally stupid. Whatever it is that’s forcing you to stay here.”

“I didn’t say anything about…” he trailed off, and then grimaced. “Are you sure you weren’t just having a nightmare?” he asked.

“Of _course_ I’m sure I wasn’t having a nightmare, if it was a dream then why would I have woken up on the floor?”

“So it slept in your bed and you slept on the floor?”

“ _Yes_.”

His brow furrowed. He knocked back the rest of his liquor.

Elena tried again: “Could it have been a ghost?”

“Do you believe in ghosts?” he asked, curiously.

“I don’t know, I don’t know anything about it. Do you?”

“I don’t believe in ghosts, no. But then, I’m rather a cynic.” She gestured to his non-human face in frustration, and he gave her a toothy smile. “My own existence has been adequately proven for me. But why would you think it was a ghost? Did it try to touch you?”

“No, I jumped out of bed when I heard it coming and then it went to sleep.”

“Did you try to touch it?”

“Why on earth would I try to touch it?!”

His eyes unfocused, and for a moment he appeared to be deep in thought. Then, he said, “Would you like some breakfast?”

She stared at him in disbelieving silence.

“There’s oatmeal and coffee. And whiskey, of course, if you want it.”

She let out a small, annoyed shriek.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, not very placatingly. “Do you want me to go up and check your room for you, see if the hinges on the door need oiling or something like that?”

“You don’t believe me,” she said. “That is – you are –”

“You have to admit, Elena, it sounds a little bit odd.”

“Either you are doing this yourself and lying to me for your own sick amusement,” she said, “or you’re completely useless.” She whirled around, but she’d only gotten a couple steps when he appeared in front of her.

“At least take some coffee,” he said, offering her a mug.

She glared at him. But she took the coffee.

Her bedroom proved frustratingly void of proof or explanation. The table she remembered searching the night before was now absolutely rife with candles and matches both, the bed was only vaguely rumpled with no convenient strands of hair left on either pillow, and there was no locking mechanism whatsoever on the door. After a while, the monster knocked, and poked around exploratively and offered to help her move her things to a different room, until she got frustrated with his all-too-apparent skepticism and kicked him out. Then she sat in the center of the bed she’d been ousted from, angrily sipped her tepid coffee, and wondered if she’d better forsake her word and quit now.

When she got tired of feeling sorry for herself, she drew a bath and felt sorry for herself in the bath for a change of scenery. She wedged a small table firmly underneath the door handle first, no longer trusting her privacy to her host, or whoever or whatever else might be lurking around the house. The hot water soothed her sore back and neck, if not her hurt feelings, and by the time she stepped out she’d regained just enough goodwill to be curious about the pile of clothes in her wardrobe.

If not quite as alarming, the clothes turned out to be almost as baffling as her night had been.

The first thing she noticed was that there seemed to be years and years’ worth of clothes, in dozens of different styles from different eras. The only thing they had in common was that they were all of the best quality, and all tending rather towards the scandalous than the dowdy. The second thing that became clear after she tried on a couple of the less extravagant pieces, was that they all fit her – _perfectly_. She hadn’t noticed it as much with the nightgown because it was so unlike anything she’d ever owned, but every single dress and every pair of trousers could have been tailored specifically for her. Even the shoes she uncovered at the bottom of the pile fit her, although they were too tall for her to be remotely interested in wearing them around the house. After the eighth outfit fit like yet another second skin, she gave up on playing dress-up and went to go look for the monster.

She found him in the library, fully-clothed this time, his feet up on the furniture, his nose in a book, and a new glass of whiskey by his elbow. He looked up when she entered, and she spread her arms to call attention to her new clothes. “You look very nice,” he said obligingly, “though I see you haven’t done anything about the eye circles.”

“That is _not_ what I meant, and you know it,” she retorted. “Where did these come from?”

He eyed her warily. “You have a very accusatory tone, has anybody ever told you that?” She just raised her eyebrows at him, and he sighed. “Do they not suit?”

“They suit _too_ well. Did you have an entire wardrobe made for me before you brought me here? How did you know I’d come? How did you get my measurements?”

He put his book down on his lap and raised a hand to stop her. “The clothes weren’t made for you.”

“Where did you find them? Are they a part of the magic of the house?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did the house create them for me?”

“No. No, the house didn’t _create_ them. They were in storage and I pulled them out. What could possibly make you think there was anything inherently magical about this house?” She just looked at him. He sighed. “Of course, how silly of me, the locking unlockable doors and the unseen sleeper.”

“Well, in _that_ case,” she said, losing her temper and with it her resolve to give him his little bit of space for the first part of their tenure together, “if my door and my bed-companion don’t mean that my presence here is nothing a nasty, cruel trick, then tell me, what _is_ my presence here about? Why am I here? What help _do_ you need from me, and what does what you’d heard about me have to do with it?”

He snapped, “Did you ever think –” and then cut off abruptly. He blew an irritated breath out of his nose and tried again: “Might you be –” He stopped, growled, and managed to bite out, “You’re just making this into something that it’s not, Elena.” 

“Making _what_ into something it’s not? Into what?” He said nothing. “Can’t you say, or won’t you?” He only glared. “You still haven’t said where the clothes came from.”

“No,” he said shortly. “I haven’t.”

She waited, but nothing was forthcoming. “Why is it that you seem to be forced to silence, whereas I haven’t found anything yet that I cannot say?”

“Maybe it’s not about you, Elena.”

“I’m living in this place, just as you are.”

“Maybe it’s _still_ not about you.”

“So what am I supposed to _do_ for a year?”

“Whatever you want, Elena.”

They glared at one another in bristling silence for a moment, and then she declared, “I need more blankets, and some heavier winter clothes to sleep in.” She turned on her heel, but his dismissive drawl followed her out of the room. 

“Humans are so fragile.”

She turned in the doorway and shouted back at him, “ _You_ are so _unfeeling_!” 

The mystery of her bedroom, of a faceless, voiceless person with the unexplained desire to be close to her, was terrifying. But the mystery of her host, whose face was a mask, who never seemed to speak the truth simply if he could come at it sideways, and who brought her here out of seemingly no desire at all – was maddening.  



	4. Chapter 4

Despite everything, the first full day passed. Elena organized her wardrobe, shelved half of the books lying about, and made sure there were lights easily reachable on every surface. She wandered down to the kitchen an hour past midday and scrounged up a few rolls and a chunk of hard cheese, which she took back up to her room. She ate one-handed while she swept the floor. The monster appeared hours later, wordlessly handed her a pile of linens and backed out again; on top of the extra blankets, he’d found her a couple of felt, long-sleeved nightgowns. One of them was tartan, the other was flowered and had a knobbly little rose on the neck; both of them were horrible. But there was also a dressing gown, which was long and soft and a pretty gray-blue. It was the dressing gown that persuaded her to go down to dinner. He pulled out her chair for her again as if they hadn’t been fighting and he hadn’t had any doubt that she’d come, and then they sat across from one another, and neither of them apologized. He asked politely about her day, and she told him what she’d accomplished in her room, skating over the bits about the candles and matches. He nodded, and stared at his plate. Finally she lit on the idea to ask what he’d been reading, and he obligingly told her the title and author, and added helpfully, “It’s a novel.”

Then there was nothing to do but go to bed.

She’d intended to stay up to see what happened, but the sleeplessness of the night before caught up with her and she dropped off before she’d even heard the clock chime ten, and didn’t wake up until her floor creaked. She bit back a groan, rolled out of bed, and reached for the candle and matches at her bedside – gone.

She wanted to be surprised, but found that she wasn’t, very.

“Have it your way,” she said to the dark room, and stumbled over to the pile of blankets and pillows that she’d arranged on the floor earlier and collapsed into it. The bed creaked as her ghost settled in; he let out a deep sigh. “You’re welcome to it,” she mumbled, “just stay over there.” He didn’t show any signs of doing otherwise, and so after a tense half-hour, she fell back to sleep. Every noise from the bed made her stir uneasily, but for the most part the sleeper was as silent as he was unseen.

He was certainly quiet as he left, for when she awoke the next morning the bed was again empty. She eyed it with no small amount of resentment, for her back was still stiff, but thought that if this was the price that must be paid, the catch in the curse of a year and a day, then maybe it wasn’t completely unsustainable. She didn’t suppose that the sleeper was a problem tied to the particular room and not a problem tied to her, so that it could be solved as easily as moving rooms, but maybe she could pull the mattress off one of the other beds and keep it on the floor of her room without being bothered. She’d find a way to make it livable.

She wandered down the stairs in significantly less of a snit than she had the previous morning, tying her dressing gown around her waist and steeling herself for conversation.

The monster had again arisen before her, and was again only half-dressed. He gulped down the rest of the liquid in his glass when he saw her coming. “May I wish you a good morning?” he asked.

“You don’t have to be glib,” she answered primly. “Do you mind if I join you for breakfast?”

“Toast and eggs today.”

“Lovely.” She pulled out her own chair and went about selecting two pieces of lightly-brown toast and scraping more butter onto them than she would have allowed herself at home. Her breakfast companion passed her a small jar of jam, and uncovered a frying pan and served her two eggs. The eggs were still warm, and the bread had a faint taste of honey beneath the blackberry jam. All in all it made her slightly wonder what she’d missed with the previous morning’s oatmeal. She turned her coffee cup rightways up in its saucer, and murmured a polite request for coffee. The monster blinked at her, and after an odd pause, passed her the carafe beside him and a little pitcher of cream. She filled up her cup and held it in both hands, savoring the warmth.

Then she saw that behind where the carafe had been a moment before, the glass that she’d assumed had been filled with whiskey before he finished it, was actually stained a dark red color by a thick liquid that clung to its sides. She replaced her cup in its saucer with shaking hands. She’d known, of course, what sort of creature he was. But somehow she hadn’t imagined he was drinking blood _here_ , in this fine house with her so near. Her newly-won feeling of safety wavered, and when she automatically took another bite of egg, it tasted rubbery. 

He’d tried to hide it. Why? Surely not to make her feel safe, when he’d been all but completely pitiless when it came to her feelings the previous day. A horrible thought conjured itself: the brief minutes she had slept, both of the last two nights. And she was always asleep when the mystery figure entered, and always asleep when he left – was that a part of the rules of the curse? Would she fall asleep no matter what? What could be happening while she was trapped in unconsciousness?

Was this why she was here? Chosen for a year and a day of having her blood drained from her veins while she slept so that a monster could drink it over toast and eggs – which, naturally, he wasn’t eating? 

She placed her fork on the edge of her plate and rose to her feet. “Excuse me,” she said, as calmly as she could. He looked like he wanted to say something, but she didn’t wait to hear what it was.

Up in her room, she shut herself in her washroom and wedged the table under the doorknob again. Then with shaking hands she took off her dressing gown, faced herself in the mirror, and checked her neck for bite marks.

There were none. It was a relief, but she was far from wholly reassured.

She dragged the table back from the door and stepped back out into her bedroom, and contemplated for the first time whether she needed to break one of the wooden chairs or tables and make a stake out of it. It felt like it would have been declaring war, so she settled for picking up the broom and carrying it casually tucked through her elbow as she went back down the stairs.

She was going to find the cellar.

At first the only thing she discovered was exactly how easy it would be for another person to be lurking somewhere without her knowing about them. The house was labyrinthine; by the time she moved from one wing to another, one floor to the next, someone with an interest in avoiding her could easily have slipped out of one of the many connecting doors without being seen. She didn’t even cross paths with her host, whom she _knew_ was somewhere to be found. 

When she did, finally, find the stairs to the lowest level, it was an hour later and her nerves were hopelessly frayed from opening door after door expecting something to jump out, be it a monster she didn’t know or the one she did. She didn’t even know which would be worse.

The hallway through the cellar was narrow, and of course it smelled even mustier and danker than the upper levels of the home. She peered into side rooms – one of them had bars on the door, one of them was incongruously filled with plants. She couldn’t imagine why her host would have said she wouldn’t find the cellar comfortable – she _didn’t_ , but she wasn’t comfortable anywhere in this house.

And then she turned a blind corner and found herself face to face with what would have been a wine cellar in any other house: wall-to-wall awful glass bottles that she _knew_ were not filled with wine. Her hand tightened around the broom handle, and she forced herself to stand still and look for some clue of where it all came from, if any of it was less dusty or suspiciously free of cobwebs. If any of it was fresh. There were no labels on the racks, but she didn’t want to have to touch any of the bottles to check if they had anything marked on them. She compromised by stepping closer and craning her neck, but still couldn’t make out anything. They were just plain, identical bottles – dozens and dozens of them. There was far, _far_ more blood in this room than there was in her body.

A sudden knock pulled her out of her rapidly spiraling thoughts, and she glanced to her left. The monster – the one she knew about – was leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest.

“I did tell you not to come down here,” he said drily.

“No, you told me I wouldn’t be comfortable,” she countered.

“And I could hear your heartbeat getting faster from a floor up. Evidently I was right. I think you had better tell me what you’re thinking right now, so we can get it out of the way.”

She crossed her own arms and lifted her chin. “Is any of this mine?” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady.

“No,” he answered.

“Is my blood going to end up in bottles on this wall?”

“ _No_ , Elena. I told you you wouldn’t be harmed, didn’t I? Shouldn’t this be reassuring, to know I have something to eat that isn’t you?”

Maybe it would have been, if she hadn’t been preoccupied and distracted by her nightly intruder. “Why would it be reassuring if I don’t know where it comes from?” she shot back.

He rolled his eyes. “There’s a replenishing spell, same one that’s on the kitchen pantry.”

“So the house _is_ magic.”

“ _No_ , it’s not. There’s a spell on the pantry and the cellar. That’s all. That’s not the same thing.”

“But where does it come from?” He made an aggravated face at her repetition, so she spit out, “ _Whose blood is it_?”

He snorted. “Damned if I know.”

She let her hands drop to her sides, startled by his admission. “You don’t know.”

“No, Elena. It’s not as if I know which farm the eggs came from, either. Or as if I were personally acquainted with the baker who made the bread. We both have food for a year and a day – that’s all that matters.”

She felt stupid, and then, obscurely, she felt comforted. He wasn’t drinking from her. He wasn’t drinking from _anyone._ He wasn’t stalking strangers, draining guests, filling a dark, dusty cellar with the blood of his victims. He was just eating what was in the pantry, exactly like she was. And yes, perhaps the comparison with her food was a callous one, but maybe he didn’t want to think about where his sustenance came from any more than she did. Maybe he _wasn’t_ really her host – maybe he was a guest here, trapped here just like she was. But she asked anyway, cocking her head towards the gruesome wall of bottles. “Do you _have_ to?”

“Yes,” he answered, but without resentment. “Or else I’m not going to be much of a conversationalist for the next year.” At her raised eyebrows, he added, “Yes, even worse of a conversationalist than now. What’s dead needs blood to go on walking around.”

She nodded, looking at her feet. At least she’d asked.

“Now may I ask a question?” he asked.

“I suppose you can.”

“Is your plan to kill me with that broom?”

She looked up; he was grinning. “Maybe I wanted to clean.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ve thought better of it. I’m going to start with the upstairs and work my way down.”

“That’s your prerogative,” he said, and offered her his hand. “Shall we?”

She nodded, and then put the broom in his hand; he chuckled, and let her lead the way back up to the main floor. It was a relief to see the morning sunshine streaming through the window after the chill of the darkness, and the sky outside was perfectly clear.

She turned abruptly and almost ran into the monster. “When was the last new moon?”

“Why would I know that?” he said, non-plussed. 

“You’re supposed to be a creature of the night, aren’t you?”

“I’m not a werewolf, Elena.”

“Well, obviously.” 

“So?” he said.

“There wasn’t any moonlight two nights ago – or _was_ there?”

“Well, I don’t remember.”

“I do,” she said. “There wasn’t, but I think there ought to have been.”

“Ought to have been? Maybe it was cloudy.”

“Maybe you’re being obtuse!” she said, without much heat. He raised his eyebrows. “There’s a spell on the kitchen, and a spell on the cellar,” she explained. “A spell to keep us from starving, to replenish the food. And there’s another one in my room – I don’t know what it is or how it works or especially why it’s there, but someone doesn’t want there to be any light in my room once I’ve gone to bed.”

He stared at her, and then tried, “Do you need candles?”

She sighed. “You were making perfect sense a minute ago, why do you become so confusing when I try to talk to you about this?”

“How am I the confusing one here?” he complained.

“Alright,” she said, “just answer me this.”

“Of course, Elena, I live to answer your everlasting queries.”

She re-crossed her arms, and looked him in the eye. “Am I safe from you, or am I _safe_?” He only looked at her, uncomprehending. She went on, “You know more about what’s happening here than I do, you have _some_ idea of what the rules are. So are you giving me a personal promise, or can you guarantee me that nothing will harm me for the next year?”

“Unless you knock a chandelier or a bookshelf onto your own head, you’ll be perfectly safe.”

“You _promise_ , or you _know_?”

“Both.” It tended rather to the sardonic than to the sincere. But there was enough truth there that she felt, maybe, she could put her trust in it.

That night, she waited on the floor of her room, wrapped liberally in blankets. She did drift off, again, so that she was insensible when the mystery-guest entered only to be awoken by his heavy step on the old floorboards. She feigned sleep, and waited until the sounds of him settling into bed had ceased, and his breathing was deep and even. Then she crept out of her nest and around the side of the bed, and stood over the sleeping figure. “Psst,” she whispered. He didn’t stir. “You, in the bed,” she said, a little bit louder. Still nothing. And so she reached out with a shaking hand and poked. It didn’t feel particularly monstrous – not hairy, or scaly. It felt like human flesh, albeit covered by a nightshirt. She poked him again in what she thought was his shoulder, groped her way over the pillow to his head, inadvertently carding her fingers through his hair in the process – soft curls, cropped medium short – and then, emboldened by his lack of reaction, brushed her fingers over his lips. No fangs jutted over them, the bones behind the lips felt square and uniform enough. She absently touched her free hand to her own lips – they felt the same. She withdrew her hand, and crouched next to the bed, caught up in her own thoughts while the sleeping figure breathed slowly beside her.

She carefully reached out and placed her hand flat on his chest.

Beneath warm skin, a heart was beating.

Whoever was wandering into her room every night, it seemed he was alive – and human.


	5. Chapter 5

And so, day by day, the first weeks passed much as the first day had, and a tentative routine developed. During the daylight hours, Elena read, cleaned, and tried not to fight with the monster, usually doing a poor job of all three. Though there were few actual distractions, she had trouble focusing on a book, and tended to read only a few chapters in one before switching to another that looked more appealing a day later. She was making more progress on the state of the house; her own room had been cleaned, polished, and aired to perfection, although she had left a few of the tables cluttered to keep it from feeling stuffy. She’d tackled the upstairs hallway next, and got a pretty lavender dress so dusty that it was unsalvageable and became her permanent cleaning uniform; then she moved on to the main floor, and stalled. The problem there wasn’t lack of focus but rather lack of help: she simply couldn’t reach the worst of the dust and cobwebs on her own. She found that if she bothered the monster for long enough, he would, in fact, traipse across the house to wherever she was working and survey the area critically for a solution. But the house’s only stepladder barely deserved the name; it wasn’t tall enough to reach the tops of the windows, let alone the corners of the vaulted ceiling, even if he was the one standing on it, and even if he was using the long-handled duster that Elena had built. She thought if she stood on his shoulders then they might have more luck, but she didn’t suggest it and he didn’t offer. Thus her requests were usually fruitless, and aggravating for her as well as for him – though he actually seemed to find her indecisiveness in the library more irritating. She didn’t know if he was angry that she was walking in and interrupting his own incessant reading, or personally offended that she never managed to finish anything, but she could always feel his glare on her when she left with a new book. He was getting into the habit of drinking when he saw her coming – though, to be fair, since the glass was then empty by the time she got close, she couldn’t be sure if he was trying to keep her from having to see glasses of blood lying about, or if he found it easier to deal with her while drunk on whiskey. It could have been both.

They still ate breakfast together, but usually in polite or chilly silence, depending on how the previous day had gone. Then they went their separate ways; they weren’t exactly avoiding each other, but whenever they did cross paths, he always seemed to be surprised to see her – which impression was only reinforced by the fact that he was only rarely fully dressed – and so it felt like she was stepping on his toes. He just didn’t seem to be at loose ends, like she was, like he didn’t know what to do with himself. Mostly, they only really spoke to one another over dinner, but those conversation remained stilted; she couldn’t ask him about the reasons for their being there without his suddenly becoming unforthcoming, and they had little other common ground to meet upon. He didn’t ask her about her former life, and he didn’t answer personal questions she posed to him. They talked about the weather, and about the house, and about the food – but there were always undertones to the small-talk that made her feel like he was humoring her, or dropping hints to something she still didn’t understand. Her back-and-forth with him was still much less straightforward than the other developing relationship in the house.

For, during the nighttime hours, the situation with the sleeper was ongoing as well. 

She’d believed the monster’s words – she _wasn’t_ in any danger, especially because the person sleeping in her bed really did seem to be a very exhausted human man. But the sheer pointlessness of the nightly invasion only made her all the more determined to figure out what the rules were, what the nature of whatever-was-going-on _was_. Her semi-scientific experiments had yielded some results, although most of them were of the negative sort. For one thing, it wasn’t possible for her to witness the man’s entrance. She’d tried napping during the day, she’d tried making half a carafe of coffee and drinking it before bed, she’d tried pacing around her room – and yet, she was never awake to hear the clock strike twelve. She would just wake up when the floor creaked, and find herself collapsed awkwardly on the floor, usually with a knot on the back of her head, and then she’d have to crawl back over to her pile of pillows and blankets. She had tried leaving candles burning, as well, and she’d left the curtains wide open – but by the time she woke up, the candles would be gone, and no light passing through the windows. She never saw that change happen, either. She tried barring the door, next, just to see what would happen – nothing happened, and so she tried barring both the door and the window. She still fell asleep, and he still entered, or perhaps materialized in the middle of the room. She dusted a coating of flour in front of the door and the window – and had the satisfaction of finding smudgy, bare footprints at the door the next morning. The following night, she slept with her head resting on the door. She still didn’t stir when it opened, and woke up having been nudged to the side. 

She didn’t try talking to him. The fact that he’d never addressed her seemed like evidence enough that he wasn’t allowed to speak – and if he _was_ capable of speaking and hadn’t said anything to her that first night, then she didn’t have anything to say to him.

So she had these answers: she was lulled to sleep sometime before midnight. The lights went out and the candles disappeared sometime after this; the man entered through the door and presumably left through it again, though his flour footprints had disappeared in the hallway. She usually slept through his exit altogether, and woke naturally in the morning, tangled in her blanket-nest with candles strewn everywhere and light streaming through the previously impervious windows. 

It remained mysterious, but it also remained consistent, until one morning she woke up in her bed.

There was a brief disorienting moment in which she thought she was at home, with her brother in the room next door, and then an equally disorienting moment in which she remembered that no, she’d definitely fallen asleep early in her pile of blankets and barely noticed the man’s trek across her floor. There was no reason she should have been in bed – and then she realized that he must have picked her up and put her there. Actually, given how comfortably she was arranged, he must have tucked her in.

She’d pestered and poked him, tried to spy on him and lock him out. But she hadn’t thought he was going to interfere with her – hadn’t really thought he _could_.

She didn’t much like it. 

The next night, she feigned sleep after the man climbed into bed, which apparently was also what he had in mind, for after a quarter of an hour he rolled out of bed, crossed the room to where she lay, and bent over her – she could just make out the outline of him reaching for her. She struck out, hard, with both feet, and made contact with his stomach. He doubled over, stumbled backwards and hit the bed. 

“Just because you supposedly don’t mean me any harm, that doesn’t mean I want to share a bed with you,” Elena said furiously.

He recovered, then dropped to his knees in front of her, and before she could react he’d reached out and taken her hand – she struggled, and tried to kick him again, but didn’t have enough room – he placed her hand on his chest.

“I _know_ you’re alive,” she snapped, snatching her hand back, “but that doesn’t change anything. That is a _very low bar_ to clear.” He reached for her again, she leaned backwards. “ _Stop_ it.”

He let out a short exhalation of breath that was almost, almost a laugh. 

“This is _not_ funny,” Elena told him. 

He stood up, took a step back. She relaxed slightly, just for a moment – and then he lunged and scooped her up in his arms. She gasped, more offended than afraid; he carried her a couple steps and then tossed her into bed. Thankfully, he made no attempt to force her to stay put, but only lumbered casually around the foot of the bed to the side he always slept on. Elena jumped out of bed as soon as he was out of the way and backed herself into a corner of the room; he collapsed onto his pillow. He grunted, as if to say _Suit yourself_ , and then made a ridiculous show of settling in, with much fluffing of pillows and burrowing into blankets, all of which was much louder and more dramatic than it had to be.

“Oh, just go to sleep,” Elena hissed at him.

He laughed softly, and then obligingly did go to sleep. Eventually, fitfully, so did she.


	6. Chapter 6

She awoke exhausted and unnerved, and in no mood to pretend to be otherwise. She slammed the door of her room, stomped down the stairs, and flung herself into her chair at the dining room table.

“I never fully understood the figure of speech _got up on the wrong side of the bed_ until I met you,” the monster drawled pleasantly. “Every morning: totally different. It’s like you toss a coin. What on earth could have put you in this mood between last night and now?”

“Don’t you ever wear a shirt?” she retorted.

He stretched. “Why, Elena, I didn’t know you noticed.”

“How could I possibly fail to?”

“Don’t tell me _this_ is what’s annoying you.”

“Your utter failure to adapt to sharing your space with another person? Never.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Your pardon, I had no idea.”

“Did it ever occur to you to check up on me when you hear a struggle in the middle of the night? Or is your extraordinary sense of hearing only active during the day?”

“Struggle in the middle of the night?” he repeated. 

“I’ve told you about this.”

“You’re still having those dreams?” he said. “Wouldn’t it be an inexcusable invasion of your privacy for me to wake you up?”

She sighed. “Never mind.” He was only going to misunderstand most of what she told him and then forget all of it anyway. In a way, that was her final semi-scientific result: the monster’s implacable confusion regarding what went on in this house during the night could only be part of the curse. He was frequently difficult to deal with, and occasionally callous, but he was only stupid about this.

In the middle of that night, she woke up in bed; the man must have avoided the creaky parts of the floor when he entered and then crept up on her while she was unaware of him. She rolled over and punched him in the shoulder, and then got up and took her place on the floor again, muttering that if he moved her again he was going to regret it. The morning light found her on her usual spot on the floor – but he’d taken all her blankets and piled them on the bed, so that she awoke shivering. 

The next night when he approached her, she leapt to her feet. “No,” she declared. He placed a hand on her arm in what might have been meant as a reassuring gesture; she kicked him in the shin. Undeterred, he picked her up, tossed her over his shoulder, and dumped her onto the bed. She rolled back off, but when she straightened to a standing position he pushed her – not hard, but enough that she ended up sitting back in bed. She jumped to the floor, dodged his grab, and then slapped him as hard as she could across the face. He reeled back for a moment, and the sound rang through the previously quiet room while both of them stood, frozen. Then, doggedly, he stepped toward her again. She lifted her hand, already stinging, to slap him again, but he caught her wrist before she could connect. 

They were stood close enough to one another that she could feel his breath on her face.

After a long moment, he released her, stepped back, and sighed heavily. He returned to the bed, and she slept until the morning without his disturbing her any further – but she didn’t dare to hope that he’d actually given up. 

She put on a pleasant face for breakfast (the monster had conscientiously put on a shirt, but hadn’t bothered to button it), read the first twenty pages of a new book, and then spent a long afternoon beating the living room carpets out on the front porch to relieve some frustration.

Dinner that night was a sort of beef stew; she’d worked up an appetite, but noted that the monster was pushing his food around in the bowl with even less interest than usual.

“You know,” she said, “you don’t _have_ to pretend you eat my food.”

“I’m not pretending,” he said. “I do eat it. It’s just over-salted.”

“You never eat more than a couple bites.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d be particularly comfortable eating alone while I watched.” 

“That’s more or less what we’re doing now, anyway,” she said, reasonably. “I appreciate the gesture, but you have to eat what you have to eat. If we’re going to eat dinner together, why don’t you just – eat your dinner?”

He made a sardonic face. “Might I remind you of your reaction the last time I ate at the table?”

“That was when I first got here,” she said, pointing at him with her spoon, an unmistakable breach of etiquette that she wouldn’t have dreamed of committing only a few weeks ago, and now was by far the least alarming thing happening in the conversation. “I was startled, I didn’t know where it came from. It’s hardly the same situation now. I know you’re not killing anyone.”

He looked at her, his usually over-expressive face carefully blank. “It’s human blood, Elena.”

“And you told me you need blood to live,” she answered. “You don’t have a choice. You have less of a choice, in fact, than I do.”

He raised his eyebrows. “What makes you say that?” 

“You didn’t force me to be here, I came freely,” she said. “ _You_ don’t want to be here – I don’t think you chose any of this.”

He laughed. It was a harsh sound, and at the same time that she realized she was certain she was absolutely right about him, she realized also that she’d overstepped. “So I’m another victim here?” he said, derisive. “ _That’s_ the story you’ve been telling yourself?”

“What other story is there for me to have told myself?” she said, plowing forward despite the warning signs. “You spend the majority of every day in the library. You pull my chair out for me at dinner. You told me not to go in the cellar because you didn’t want me to be uncomfortable, you pretend to eat the same food as me for the same reason. You _always_ help me when I ask you, even if you don’t want to.” He met her eyes, daring her to say it. So she did: “You’re not much of a _real_ monster. I think if you had a choice, you wouldn’t hurt anybody at all.”

Abruptly, he stood; his chair scraped the floor loudly and then toppled over. “Maybe I didn’t choose _this_ ,” he snarled, “say you’re right about that. But I’ve been this way a long time, and I’ve made other choices since. To think because you know what I’m like here, you know the kind of choices I _would_ make out in the world –” He broke off, looking disgusted.

She stared at him. She’d never seen this bitterness in him before, never even suspected that it existed. “What choices have you made?” she asked.

“There are things that I _can’t_ tell you, Elena,” he said, “but there are a _thousand_ more that I don’t tell you because _I don’t want you to know_.”

He turned to leave, but she pushed to her feet and called after him, “I’m not afraid.”

He turned on her, growled, “You’re a fool not to be.” 

“You promised me,” she said. “You promised I’d be safe.”

“A promise it’s in my best interests to keep,” he said, cruelly, “but I _could_ break if I wanted to. And you have no idea what I want.”

“I don’t believe that you would do that,” she said, telling the truth.

He laughed, and then spat at her, “I’m not your _pet_ , Elena.”

Before she could protest, could say that of course that wasn’t what she thought of him at all, there was a _whoosh_ of displaced air, and he was gone.

She supposed it was almost a break-through, in some ways – to know that even if he wasn’t the person she’d imagined him to be, there _was_ something under the sardonic façade, something that needed healing. But there was the trouble: maybe she had trusted him too much, but he clearly didn’t trust her enough. Maybe he was a real monster, but having taken the step to see that, now she’d never be able to see him as anything else, if he didn’t let her get another step nearer. They were too close and too far, always, trapped together unavoidably but without their lives ever intwining. Free enough to avoid each other, but not free enough for anything else. 

When her bedroom floor creaked at sometime past midnight and she cracked an eyelid to see her other sparring partner standing over her in apparent indecision, she levered herself into a sitting position and regarded his shadowy outline with equal ambivalence. “I don’t much feel like fighting with you tonight,” she told him.

He sighed. She interpreted this to mean that he never much felt like fighting with her, either. But he still ignored her half-hearted protests to bend over and pick her up, and cradled her close to his chest so that for a moment she felt his heartbeat next to her ear before he deposited her in her side of the bed. The simple fact of his humanity, when she was so worn out and felt so alone, was a comfort. So she pulled her knees up to her chest and watched the dark shape of the man make his way back around the bed to his own side. He climbed under the covers, and flipped over so that his back was to her, perhaps ignoring her because she’d been so much trouble over the last weeks, or perhaps trying to give her the tiniest bit of privacy. She listened to his breathing even out, watched his chest rise and fall, and then pushed her toes under the covers. 

He, certainly, didn’t want to be here; he, at least, was caught up in arbitrary rules he had to obey, and probably would have been kinder if he could. 

If the monster was going to insist on his monstrosity, then maybe the person trapped here with her, the person she’d fight against the curse with, was the man. They had their humanity in common, if nothing else – and at the moment, that seemed like enough to put them on the same team.

At any rate, the bed was much warmer than the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you've enjoyed this latest update, in what basically amounts to a historical-fantasy-AU quarantine fic! and I hope that your own quarantine experiences aren't as complicated as Elena's here.
> 
> leave me a comment, or come say hi on tumblr! catefrankie.tumblr.com


	7. Chapter 7

Morning dawned, and Elena woke up in her bed. It was still disorienting, after so many nights sleeping on the floor, and in the light of day she felt a little chagrined – perhaps she’d been a bit foolish to climb into bed with somebody she’d never seen, let alone spoken with. But the aches and pains that had been building up in her body were eased to an almost miraculous degree, and she’d certainly slept more soundly than she had since she arrived, so that she found herself making justifying arguments already that it couldn’t hurt to sleep in bed again, tonight. The man had stayed on his own side of the bed without touching her, had really seemed to only have her own good in mind in his insistence that she stop sleeping on the floor – and really, the bed was _very_ large. If for some reason, the curse of the year and a day or the separate spell on the room required him to sleep wherever she was, there was no reason they couldn’t both sleep comfortably. 

Of course, she hadn’t stayed because the bed was comfortable. Mostly, it had been good to hear someone else breathe. But she didn’t need to think about that, now.

She got up, splashed some water on her face, contemplated the day lying ahead of her: window washing, probably. The next chapter of her book, or maybe a new book. A long bath in the afternoon? The possibilities were both entirely open-ended and sadly limited.

She knew she ought to make a special effort to seek the monster out, to smooth things over, prove her sincerity and make a fresh start. But she couldn’t say the prospect of avoiding him completely wasn’t appealing in its own way. Let him sulk in some distant corner of the house, let her live away from his judgmental gaze, for a few days or until they both got bored enough to seek each other out.

A knock sounded on the door.

For a moment she had the inane thought, “I wonder who that is,” before she remembered that there was only one person it could possibly be. She took her dressing gown off the hook, wrapped it around herself, and opened the door.

The monster met her eyes, and smiled stiffly.

She crossed her arms. “What is it?”

“I wanted to apologize.”

Her eyebrows went up. “For what?”

“My behavior.”

“That’s vague, isn’t it?”

He heaved a respiratorily-unnecessary sigh, but answered seriously, “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. It’s not you I’m angry with.”

She eyed him curiously. “Yourself?” she guessed.

“What? No,” he said, genuinely startled. “Of course not. Now _that_ would be pointless.”

She pressed her lips together to suppress a smile, and offered, “For my part…I shouldn’t have assumed.”

He grinned. “I probably should be flattered, shouldn’t I?”

She shook her head. “I’m going to try to stop telling myself stories about you,” she said firmly. “But…” she looked him in the eye, said, “it would help if you told me a few.”

He made a face, said tiredly, “You don’t have to know anything about me.”

She lifted one shoulder in a self-conscious shrug. “I’d like to.”

“It’s not a story with a happy ending, Elena.”

“How do you know?” she countered gently. “It hasn’t ended yet.”

“Yes,” he said with flat finality, “it has.” 

And perhaps it was true, that the story had ended when his heart ceased to beat. “Anyway, I’m sorry, too,” she said, with a better attempt at lightness. “And you could’ve waited until breakfast, I would have come downstairs without the apology.”

It was his turn to shrug. “Didn’t have a particularly restful night. Wanted to get it over with.” He turned to go, but stopped midway down the hallway and looked back at her. “You have one question each night. If I can, I’ll answer it.”

It was a classic arrangement for a curse, in the stories; she’d be lying if she said it didn’t appeal. She leaned out of her doorway. “One question a night? We’ve been here for weeks. That’s not part of the curse.”

“No,” he said. “It’s a deal I’m making with you.”

“So what happens if I ask something you can’t answer?”

“Then I guess you wasted a question, didn’t you?” He nodded at her and started down the stairs.

She called after him, “If I get one answer a night, what do you get?”

“I don’t want anything, Elena,” he said back.

“Everybody wants something.”

“Yes,” he said, “it’s a feature of living. And everybody’s disappointed.”

So she followed him down to breakfast, and proceeded to have a very similar day to the one she thought she would have had, except with less simmering resentment and a little more self-conscious irony. She caught his eye over the breakfast dishes, and got an eyebrow-raise and subtle eye roll instead of the usual polite, uninterested smile; she ran into him in the kitchen around midday and he gracefully bowed out of the room as usual, but left her half the apple he’d sliced. When she passed by him in his spot in the library armchair so she could put her half-finished book back on the shelf, he actually got up and took it out of her hands. “In the interests of greater honesty for the sake of our continuing to live here together in peace, Elena,” he said wryly, “you’re killing me.”

She let out a surprised, half-choked laugh. “That’s not fair!” she said, snatching the book back from him and standing on her tip-toes to replace it on the shelf. “Not all of us can read thousand-page books for hours and hours at a time – I have to use my time carefully, I have a shorter lifespan than you.” 

“You have a shorter attention span than me, is what you have,” he said mildly, reaching up to push the book fully into place. “I’ve known eight-year-olds with more persistence.”

“It’s not hurting you,” she said back, primly.

“It really, really is,” he said. “Have you read the Russians?”

“No, I don’t read _Russian_.”

“Not Russian, _the_ Russians.” He nudged his way past her, pulled a book off a shelf, and tossed it to her. She caught it, and grimaced.

“And _how_ is giving me a longer book going to help?” she asked.

“Because you’re not allowed to give up until you’re at least a third of the way in, and by then you’ll have been sucked in.”

She pursed her lips. “Is this part of your _deal_?”

“No, Elena,” he said, “this is me, begging you.”

She tilted her head at him, said, “Well, I guess if you’re begging.” She cast a glance, almost against her will, at the empty sofa sitting at an angle to his chair, and then looked back at him and smiled breezily. “Well, thank you, I guess.”

He nodded, returned to his chair and his book, and she left to seek a spot of sunlight in which to slog through the brick-sized novel she’d been gifted.

She didn’t get very far, but when after dinner he raised his eyebrows at her expectantly, she did have a question ready. She didn’t want to waste a question on something he certainly wouldn’t be able to answer, like “Why am I here?” or “What exactly is the nature of the curse?” But she also didn’t want to ask something so personal that he would regret his offer, or even something so banal that he would think she wasn’t adequately grateful for the gesture. The question she’d settled on as a compromise was, “Is this your house?” – a simple, yes-or-no query which was personal and yet not overly private, and which her curiosity about was natural, and so she asked it.

She knew at once she’d made some sort of mistake, because his face, ever-mercurial, went through three quick transformations – blank and shuttered, grimacing, and then smirking to himself as if acknowledging a joke. He reached for his glass, took a sip, and then met her eyes and answered, “Mine and my brother’s.”

She couldn’t help the shock that passed over her face, but he just watched her passively. “I didn’t know you had a brother,” she said, finally.

He said nothing, only nodded.

“Why doesn’t he live here?” she asked, feeling that she was on thin ice but not knowing how not to move forward.

“We don’t speak.”

“Since when?”

“Oh, most of the last century.”

“The last _century_?” she repeated. “How old are you?”

He raised his eyebrows. “That would be telling, and you’ve already gotten a few free answers.”

“No, I mean –” she stumbled over her words, realized she was prying, and cut off. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” he said, and though it wasn’t particularly warm, it wasn’t so cold as to warn her off any and all conversation. 

“It’s just,” she managed, “I could never not speak to my brother that long.”

“No,” he agreed, “you’d both die.”

“You _know_ what I mean.”

He sighed. “Your brother’s older? Younger?”

“Younger.”

“And I suppose he hero-worships you, of course.”

“A lot of the time he barely tolerates me,” Elena admitted.

“Why?”

She considered. “I suppose when you’re all each other has in the world the thing that keeps you tight is the same thing that might make you drive each other crazy.”

The monster made a face. “Why bother with being close if it only drives you crazy?”

“He’s family,” Elena said, reproachful, “that’s reason enough.”

“Family’s a lot more important when you’re alive,” he said, matter-of-fact. “For, you know, lending you money when you’re broke, watching your kids when you want to get away, taking care of you when you’re old and senile.”

“So what about sharing the good times with people who love you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll let you know if I ever have any.”

“I refuse to believe you haven’t had a single moment of happiness or contentment in the last century or more,” Elena said, keeping her voice light with an effort.

He rolled his eyes. “Then maybe my brother and I have opposing ideas of what good times consist of, so that we can’t share in them.”

“So-o-o, is he older or younger?”

“He’s younger.”

“I assume he _doesn’t_ hero-worship you?”

“He does not.”

“And he’s…” she looked across the table at him, taking in the red eyes, spidery, pulsing veins, and fangs, and fumbling for a delicate way to phrase the question, “he’s like you?”

His mouth set in a hard line, he sighed, and answered, “He’s really not much like me at all.” He stood, gave her a curt nod. “Good night, Elena.” And without another word, he whooshed away. She’d gotten all the answers she was going to, for one night.

When the floor creaked just past midnight, Elena lifted her head off her pillow and eyed her roommate’s shadowed form, trying to pretend that sleeping in her own bed was unexceptionable and not making a dramatic statement about his trustworthiness. “Are we still doing this?” she asked.

The man flipped back the covers on his side of the bed with a meaningful pause, as if to say, “What do you think?”

“Well, thanks for being predictable, at least,” Elena muttered. 

He crawled into bed, turned his back on her, and let his breathing turn slow and even.

“You’re the only person in this house who makes any sense,” Elena told him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know y'all probably had your doubts when I said I'd return to this after my Community fic, and I had my doubts, too - changing gears is admittedly hard for me, and there's an even bigger than usual difference between a present-tense post-canon fix-it fic about modern day characters and a past-tense fairytale AU fic about vampires. But here I am, and I've even done enough outlining work that I have an estimated chapter total!! Be impressed. If not, that's okay; I'm impressed enough with myself for both of us.


	8. Chapter 8

And so, Elena’s everyday life, which had been previously filled with the impossible task of parallel couples attempting to ignore one other while occupying close quarters, now became filled with something quite different. Each day she found out something more about the monster; each night she slept beside the man. Granted, the relationships were increasing in intimacy in entirely mutually exclusive ways – she remained separated from the monster by the table between them, and she still knew absolutely nothing about the man – and yet, she was growing used to both of them, developing rhythms and a certain level of understanding. She knew factoids and anecdotes about the monster. She knew the man slept easiest on his stomach. She grew familiar with the monster’s face, which twitches and smirks meant he was amused and which eyebrow gymnastics were covering over discomfort. She could have picked the man out of a crowd by his scent and the sound of his breathing alone. They weren’t friends, any of them. But they were something like companions. 

She asked, the second evening, how old the monster was, because he hadn’t answered the previous day and now she was curious. He paused for so long she thought maybe he couldn’t answer, but then he finished his mental calculations and answered, “One hundred and seventy-two.”

The only answer she could manage was, “Oh.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And you are?”

“Eighteen.”

He nodded, and then, taking pity on her, added, “I was twenty-five when last I was human, so there’s also a sense in which I’m still twenty-five. Or something like it, anyway.”

\---

That night, she said hello to the man when the floor creaked, wondering if he would forget that she kicked him in the shins and slapped his face if she was friendly enough, and he would eventually consent to tap out the number of his own age on the banister. He offered no return greeting.

\---

She settled on purposely banal questions for a while, to get them out of dangerous territory: favorite color (“Black; it’s classy.”), favorite food (polite disbelieving stare, followed by a meaningful glance at his empty glass; she didn’t follow up), favorite book (“Don’t have one; there are too many.”) She asked what was the first place the monster would go when the year and a day was up. “In all honesty, Elena,” he answered, “I don’t have a plan.”

“Well, where would you _like_ to go?” she persisted.

He shrugged, and swirled the liquid in his glass thoughtfully. “Somewhere warm, I suppose. A city, with music, and people, so it’s not so quiet. You’ll go home?”

“Yes.”

\---

She rolled over in bed and asked the man if he could hear her when she spoke. He put a pillow over his head, which she took to mean yes, but that he would have preferred not to. 

\---

Some weeks later, she asked the monster who his favorite person was in the world; he said he had a best friend whose name was Bonnie. “Why is she your favorite?” Elena asked.

“Have you read Aristotle?” 

“Of course not.”

His eyes crinkled; her continued reluctant obedience in reading his long, Russian novel meant that her all-but-illiteracy in comparison with him was now amusing instead of frustrating. The expression made the dark and twisting veins around his eyes less threatening; from this distance and in the dim lighting, she could almost pretend they were just more smile lines. He explained, “Aristotle says the friend is another self.”

Elena smiled. “So Bonnie is like you? Another you?”

“Yes. Another me, but better in every conceivable way.”

“Tell me about her?”

“She likes puzzles and word games, and she plays the guitar. Poorly.”

Elena laughed. 

After a moment, the monster added, “She’s brave, and selfless, and she has no patience for me whatsoever.” At Elena’s look, he said, “That’s a good thing.”

“And it’s not like you’re especially patient, so she’s still better than you in every way,” she answered. He grinned. “My best friend’s name is Matt,” she offered.

His eyebrows went up. “I thought for certain your best friend would be your brother or your mother, or something equally saccharinely wholesome.” 

“My mother was wonderful,” Elena admitted.

At the ‘was’, his brow furrowed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. Actually, her best friend is Matt’s mother, so he’s my best friend because of her. Because we’re the same.”

He nodded. “And what’s your Matt like?”

“He’s loyal, and hard-working, and…good. He’s a good man.”

“And would you be preparing to marry your Matt right now,” he asked sardonically, “if you weren’t here with me?”

She sighed, shaking her head a little at his rudeness, knowing that scolding him would only make him worse. “He’s brought it up, before.”

“You didn’t say yes.”

“I did not.”

“Isn’t that what people do? Marry their best friends?”

“I suppose. I guess I just never felt ready.”

“And yet it took all of five minutes for you to leave with me.” 

She didn’t have an answer – he only needed her for a year, and he did _need_ her. Matt loved her, but what Matt wanted was the small-town life, and she was just what went with it. Maybe that was enough, but it didn’t feel like it. 

Maybe it would be enough, when she finally went home.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” she told the monster.

\---

The man turned over while he was sleeping and pulled all the blankets to his side of the bed; Elena woke up shivering and had to yank her fair share of them off him. He whined, slightly. “Hush,” she told him.

\---

“Do you remember being human?” she asked next. 

The monster blinked, turned his wine glass in his hands absently, and said, “Of course.”

She changed the subject.

\---

The man’s cold feet touched hers, and she woke with a start, kicking him instinctively. He grumbled in his sleep and rolled over, hovering on the very edge of the bed. 

\---

“Why’d you pick me?”

He opened his mouth, and then closed it. There would be no answer to that mystery.

\---

She dreamt that she was walking through the monster’s awful novel, but that he was beside her, commenting sotto voce on all the characters and making faces whenever anyone did anything that was going to cause them trouble down the line. She woke up an hour before dawn and chuckled to herself quietly. 

The man hit her with a pillow.

\---

“Do you miss being human?” she asked.

The monster heaved a sigh. “I should have known you wouldn’t let that go completely.”

She blushed, but said anyway, “Well?”

“Yes, Elena, I do.”

“What do you miss about it?”

“I could make you wait to ask that tomorrow, you know.”

“But wouldn’t you prefer to get it over with so I can ask something else tomorrow?”

“You think you’re so clever.” 

“And you think you’re so mysterious.” She crossed her arms and waited, he rolled his eyes, but leaned back in his chair, apparently thinking.

Finally, he said, “The problem with living like this…the easiest thing is to detach. Easier not to care about anything at all, or to pretend that you don’t.”

“Because people are afraid?” Elena asked softly.

“Because they’re afraid. Because I feed on them, and it’s easier not to think about that. Because they’re all going to die, and I won’t.”

She considered, then said, “Everyone I know is going to die, too. You still lose people, even if you don’t live forever.”

He inclined his head. “But before you die you get to live. I’ve done nothing but die for a hundred and fifty years.”

She asked tentatively, “Couldn’t you still care, if you wanted to?”

He looked at her steadily, said: “Yes.”

\---

She tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable or to stop her mind from running away from her. The man dozed next to her, breathing peacefully, until she accidentally jabbed him with her elbow. He half sat up, leaning away from her defensively. She reached out and brushed her fingers against his arm in apology.

Elena rolled away from the center of the bed. They both settled back into their respective pillows. His breathing deepened and evened out, and Elena eventually found sleep by matching her breaths to his.

\---

When the monster lifted his glass to her after dinner in their signal that meant whatever she asked next was her one question for the night with a promised answer, she pressed her lips together in a playful smirk, and asked, “Do you purposely avoid me during the day?”

He let out a startled laugh, and said, “I used to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why is my Damon so well read, you ask? *ineloquent shrug*
> 
> I hope you're enjoying this weird little story!


End file.
